Match Points: 4th January, 2016

Introducing Match Points… a brand new feature post for Moo’s Tennis Blog in 2016. Match Points aims to bring together the most interesting points of the tennis day including best matches, scorelines, tweets, facebook posts, videos and plenty more. It’s still a work in progress so any feedback is appreciated. It won’t be a daily feature just yet but when I have a bit more free time (mostly at weekends) then i’ll be planning to introduce this feature more often. It’s great to have live tennis back but as is always the case, this first week is just MANIC. I’m back to work tomorrow (*major sad face*) so following the tennis becomes interesting…

Tennis worth catching up with…

Vinci d. Jankovic, 3-6 6-2 6-4 (Brisbane, R1)

The third set of the Jankovic-Vinci match in Brisbane was super entertaining. Vinci produced some wonderful tennis, slicing effectively, consistently charging the net and producing some clinical volleys. Vinci needed just the one break of serve in third set thanks to one sloppy service game from Jankovic at 2-2. The Serb failed to take her chances, missing break points in two of Vinci’s service games in the third set including what would be the final game of the match. The Italian player held her nerve at the end despite being called for foot fault on her second serve on match point.

Press Conferences

I could listen to Petko speak for hours… as always, this was a very insightful press conference after her first round win in Brisbane against Teliana Pereira. Petko seems to be in a much better place after how 2015 ended. Kudos to the Brisbane YouTube account for posting all of it.

Here’s a buoyant, Daria Gavrilova after she won her first match for Australia Green at the Hopman Cup, defeating Sabine Lisicki, 6-2 6-2.

I only watched the Kuznetsova Barthel match, which I really enjoyed. Thrilled to see Svetlana start her year with real positivity and intensity. She’s been vocal about her struggle to get up for smaller matches in smaller events, which really costs her in the rankings. I’d love for her to have one last big banner year.

Can’t deny it would be great to see Kuznetsova have a decent year and be more consistent. I was disappointed to see Barthel retire, she can’t seem to catch a break. Still, one result away from another Kuznetsova-Schiavone match!

I do agree. I think perhaps Ana is too singles versed though. Even though the Czech girls lost it in the end, its amazing watching them instinctively move round each other, ducking out of each others way mid rally. When you’ve limited your career to playing singles matches I think you lose a lot of that.

Serena ret. (knee) from Hopman, Halep w/d (l. achilles) and Sharapova w/d (l. forearm) all from Brisbane, Kvitova ret. (illness) from Shenzhen, given the early seed losses, this is not an exciting start to the WTA season.

I wonder how much this is just precautionary to prep for the Aussie open. On the other hand, it hurts these lead up tournaments in terms of competitiveness.